“There’s a Place: Angeleno” part three

Then there was the time some of the guys came up with the bright idea of making a life like dummy. Man we had a blast with that thing! We had this cool mask that we called “Ralph” that we put on it. The rubber mask was sort of a wild eyed caveman with long black hair. We’d go out to the Foothill Shopping Center and scare the crap out of people by tossing it out of a moving car. It was awesome! We tied him to the back of the Paul’s panel truck and pulled him through the streets, we tossed him off of the bridge up near the Canyon Inn, we laid him on the side of busy streets and waited in hiding for passing motorists to drive up and come to his aid. Yeah, we really put him to good use. We even filmed some of the Angeleno antics with the dummy and a lot more. I came across them a few years back and transferred them to DVD. It was so cool watching us living it up and having a ball on Angeleno! Good times!

One of the greatest times I had on Angeleno was when I actually stayed there at my friend Paul’s house for almost a week. His parents had gone on vacation leaving him home alone. They had said it was okay for me and a couple of other friends to stay over and keep Paul company. It didn’t take long for word to spread and soon there were six of us living there 24/7 and many more who would drop by to visit. We called it the McCully Commune.

It was wild! We spent our time drinking and listening to music, playing guitar, watching TV and drinking! When we got hungry someone would make a food run or we’d all go to the Roadrunner. We had fun, but we all respected Paul’s house and caused no damage. Our undoing was the party Paul had on the final night. He was lamenting the loss of his girlfriend and just wanted to have a big blow out bash. Well needless to say, there were way too many people there, mostly people we knew, but there were several strangers as well. Dave and I spent most of the night keeping an eye on things as Paul in his melancholy condition was no help.

Everything seemed to go okay, and after cleaning up the house, it seemed fine, but the next day when his parents got home, his mom discovered some jewelry missing from her room. Some one had gone in and ripped it off! Later that afternoon Paul called me and told me what had happened and said his mom wanted to speak to me. I really didn’t want to go over, but I did. I’ll never forget the sad look on Mrs. McCully’s face when I arrived. She wasn’t angry, and didn’t mind at all that some of us had stayed there, but she was extremely disappointed in our lack of judgement for having such a large party and allowing strangers in the house. I’ll never forget how let down she sounded. I offered no excuses and simply apologized. I was so ashamed. In time things returned to normal, but I will never forget the look on her face and the disappointment in her voice for as long as I live.